LOVE OF A LIFETIME – Meeting wife Josy was a highlight of Joe Gouveia’s life, and he was elated that she was able to share with him his joy of finally becoming a published poet with his recent book Saudades.

Joe Gouveia, ‘badass biker poet.’ laid to rest

Joe Gouveia was many things in his life: a beloved mentor, a badass biker dude, the lone brother in a sweet sea of sisters, a cherished son, a devoted husband, a longtime friend. More than anything, he was a poet, a title he treasured.

Those who knew and loved him would also add that he was a warrior, especially during his battle against cancer. This week the badass biker warrior poet was celebrated and laid to rest after passing away at home in Hyannis on May 10.

His passing has left a chasm in the various circles in which he walked, especially the poetry community of which he was an integral part.

“So many people have been writing to me, calling. A lot of them seem lost,” said Lauren Wolk, associate director of the Cape Cod Cultural Center and a longtime friend of Gouveia’s. “Like they’re speechless, even though we knew it was coming, even though we feared it was coming.”

In spite of the deepening realities of Gouveia’s cancer, everyone held out hope that he would somehow rally, overcome odds, and persevere. After all, that was his nature.

“Joe had such a presence, not just here on the Cape, but in any poetry community he was part of, and there were many,” Wolk said.

That presence was honed through Gouveia’s passion for poetry, which led to an endless stream of creation. Not only was he a carpenter and mason, he was also instrumental in infusing Cape Cod and beyond with poetry.

Along with writing his “Meter Man” column for the Patriot, Gouveia was Poet-in-Residence at Cape Cod Community College, Cape Cod Poet Laureate, Massachusetts Poet of the Year in 2001, was Poetry Curator at the Cultural Center, and hosted a popular weekly radio show on WOMR called “Poets Corner,” as well as Poet’s Corner Open Mic for 18 years, and started the Cape Cod Poet’s Theatre.

Most recently, he celebrated the publication of his very own book of poems, Saudades.

“He was finally, in his adult life, turning his attention to his own work,” said Wolk. “He just lived long enough to see that happen. That just seems terribly unfair that he couldn’t have stuck around for a while to see more of his own work on paper, being published, and to be in the limelight a little bit. Although he wouldn’t have asked for it, he deserved it.”

Interestingly, the term “saudade,” a Portuguese word, is nearly untranslatable, though Gouveia described it as an indescribable feeling of longing.

Wolk, like everyone impacted by Gouveia’s passing, understands.

“There is truly a sense that this shouldn’t have happened, especially when it did,” she said.

Though his life was too short, it was ripe with accomplishments even beyond those already mentioned. His love of poetry led him to become the mentor of a talented young poet from Sturgis Charter Public School, Chase Berggrun.

“He and Joe became very, very close as fellow poets,” Wolk explained. “I watched Chase develop from a young man to still a young man but a much more mature man who was accepted into the MFA program at New York University. Joe had an awful lot to do with that as Chase’s mentor.”

Berggrun said his mother introduced them when he was about 15.

“I had just started writing poetry,” he said. “I had a couple poems and my mom took them without telling me and gave them to Joe.”

He recalled that Gouveia showed up at his house the next day, told him to put on some nicer clothes, and took him to a reading at O’Shea’s in Dennis.

“That was my first reading,” Berggrun said. “I was like a little scrawny kid and Joe was this big, kind of intimidating guy in a Harley jacket with tattoos and I couldn’t really say no. I was kind of afraid.”

The fear didn’t last.

“We kept doing that for about three years, every week. We went all over Cape Cod, different places in Massachusetts. When I was 17 we went to Washington, D.C.,” Berggrun said.

Berggrun credits Gouveia with sharpening his own poetry skills.

“I felt like I was good at it, but if he hadn’t come into my life at that time I don’t know if I would have stayed there,” he said. “It has become my life, he only thing I have any interest in doing.”

Berggrun said Gouveia worked tirelessly with him on his recitation of works.

“He taught me how to have a stage presence, how to perform, how to read an audience and know what that audience is looking for,” Berggrun said. “But I think the most important thing he taught me is confidence, drive, and a little bit of ego. He taught me how to not be afraid to love my own work, and how to not be afraid of failing.”

With Berggrun, the relationship ultimately progressed beyond poetry to that of a special brotherhood.

“I met Joe at a time in my life where I was going through a lot of heavy things for a teenager,” Berggrun said. “When I met Joe he offered me a chance to escape from my life, and a chance to make meaning of tragedy and sorrow and to use those things in a way that still helps me every single day.”

Berggrun appreciated Gouveia’s sarcasm.

“Whenever Joe would call me and I wouldn’t pick up he would give me some snarky remark,” Berggrun said with a smile. “He didn’t mean it at all but he would joke with me in a way that was so personal, so intimate, so loving.”

Berggrun also appreciated that Gouveia withheld nothing in their friendship.

“Throughout our relationship together I got to see every single side of Joe,” Berggrun said. “I got to see that angry badass who got in bar fights, and I got to see this really kind, and incredibly, incredibly generous person.”

At the heart of it all was poetry.

“Joe, for all of his bravado, really cared about poetry and Joe wanted people to care about poetry more than anything,” Berggrun said. “He really built the poetry community that exists on Cape Cod today.”

It is the hope of Wolk and Berggrun, and countless others in the incredibly vast circle of Gouveia’s friends, that the poetry legacy he worked to establish will endure.

Wolk is pleased that a recording of Gouviea reading his own works was finally made in the months before his death, and Berggrun plans to immerse himself in his NYU work in order to carry the torch that his dear friend lit.

“Anytime throughout my career so far that I’ve had the slightest bit of doubt or worry or anxiety, he was there. I would call him and he would give me these incredible uplifting lectures and I would come away with a renewed passion for what I’m doing,” Berggrun said. “I continue to write. I want to make Joe’s memory live on by doing what he wanted me to do.”